Family under construction: part 4 - miscarriage

On January 3^rd we went for the blood work and tests. All seemed good.

On January 7^th I started feeling weird… I was irritable, couldn't really eat anything but fruit and sleep was horrible. On January 9^th I woke up of a horrible nightmare. I dreamt that I had a stillbirth and that when my DH saw the dead baby he threw it out and stole a baby from someone who didn’t wanted her baby but he was caught and had to return the baby. I woke up sweating and with my heart beating so fast I was physically ill. My DH woke up early to take his mother to the hospital, I told him about the dream and that I wasn't feeling well.. I started to feel some pins and needles on my belly button and pubic area… he said that it probably was nothing and to lie down and rest.

I couldn't help but worry all day long, I called my mom telling her I wasn't feeling OK and that I was upset because my DH seemed to think I was overreacting. My mum said to go to the doctor to calm me down so at the end, at around 6pm I convinced DH to go to ER. 

We went to ER, I was supposed to be 12 weeks by now so they tried to do the ultrasound on my belly but the doctor couldn't see anything. At that point my DH just crumbled down… doctor did a vaginal ultrasound and there was no heartbeat… baby measured 8 weeks 4 days. I just had a silent miscarriage.

It seemed as if baby stopped development somewhere between 9 – 10 weeks.

My DH went pale; he took it so bad… I didn't know what to think… I was blank…no brain waves. Doctor explained this was fairly normal. That about 40% of pregnancies ends in first trimester. That she recommended a D&C as soon as possible because the placenta kept growing and my body was carrying on with the pregnancy. I actually still felt pregnant… nausea, breast tenderness, all the signs were still there. She gave us the paperwork to proceed with the D&C and told us to come back next day early in the morning for the procedure.

We went back home and I was still not reacting to it... I felt just as if it was happening to someone else. I thought about it, I tried to rationalize it, I tried to find reasons, but the only think I could think of is that I have been so stressed out because of family during the time the pregnancy stopped that I could only focus my anger on that situation and on a particular person.

We went to the hospital the next morning and got ready for the D&C. I was admitted to the hospital and a nurse gave me some tablets to insert vaginally that will start contractions. I inserted them and in 2 hours it all begun. At the beginning it wasn't painful but in the next two hours pain became quite strong. At this time they took me to the operating room and applied to me general anesthesia.  When I woke up I was in the recovery room, the nurse told me everything went just fine, later on the doctor came and said procedure went well and that she managed to remove the sack completely and that I should be up and running soon.

Back in the room I was in some pain so they gave me painkillers but I was bleeding a lot. They were supposed to release me that afternoon but because of the bleeding they kept me in for another full day. I was released on Sunday evening and doctor gave me a control appointment for January 23rd. They said bleeding would continue for a couple of days but if bleeding was intense, I should go back to hospital for check-up.

My DH and my brother stayed with me all the time at the hospital and at home. My DH had to go back to work on Monday but my brother requested some days off and stayed home with me for three days because doctor said I should rest and not over exert myself during the first 3 days, and obviously they didn't trusted me to rest.

Family and friends send us messages and wanted to come and see me… 

I am the kind of person that doesn’t like to have people around when I'm nervous or in pain so I asked them not to come for a week… I asked several times. 

All of my friends respected my wishes and my family as well… my mum was in Paraguay visiting her brothers and she wanted to come straight away but I told her not to move her flight forward and she also agreed, only one person didn't and I wasn't pleased at all… 

I felt that it was my time to get adjusted and I didn't want to have to accommodate other people or to be smiling to other people or to be pitied… I hate being pitied and I hate to be asked over and over again if I’m fine or not… Of course I wasn't fine! Stop asking! So this person got the worst side of my mood … but I'm not sorry. I warned them. I won't apologize. Filters off from now on.

Five days passed (by the time I'm writing this) since the D&C and I only have cried once, and I cried because I was upset not because I was sad. I cried yesterday because a friend came over and my DH and my friend were talking in front of me of the miscarriage and that it was lucky it was sooner than later, and that it wasn't really a baby yet but just a squid or a blob and that it will be over soon… and I just couldn't cope with that. I got so angry because even though I understand that it was better for it to be at 12 weeks than at 20 weeks or more, it wasn't just a blob… I really wanted that baby, and it has been difficult to get to the pregnancy part and it wasn't just “that simple” so I asked my friend to leave the house and I told at my DH that it wasn't just a blob and that his words hurt, and I cried out of frustration. But I only cried once. That was two days ago.

I’m feeling better now. I'm still bleeding but not so much and pain is not so bad now, I’m still cramping but an ibuprofen is enough to calm it down. I still have trouble sleeping but the doctor prescribed some sleeping pills and they helped a lot.

I’m not sad. I’m upset. I’ve been raised to win. I have always been the first or the best in what I was set upon to do. And this to me felt like failure. And I’m not used to failure. I'm a bad loser.

I would have been entering my second trimester on January 23rd.  On that day, we planned to put Bilbo (my wonderful dog) in a shirt that read "Big Brother" to announce our pregnancy. Unfortunately, that will not happen because I had a miscarriage.  

The only reason I'm even posting about it here is because there are women who go through this and don't talk about it and because I'm one of them. I don’t talk about it so I decided to write about it.  

It is worst for a woman to know she can get pregnant then have a loss, than a woman who can't get pregnant at all because one way or another they'll eventually write it off as something they can’t do. It’s an emotional roller coaster, your emotions are on high the moment you find out, and then you crash.  It’s hard. It’s hard on a marriage.  It’s hard on you emotionally.  After, you’re never really the same; you're always worried that something bad will happen.